Of Chaos, Connectivity, Thermodynamics and Changing the Past
by Mercurial Weather
Summary: There is no coincidence, only the illusion of coincidence. If you think Albus Dumbledore's love of ten-pin bowling and knitting patterns are just part of his eccentric personality, you may be in for a big surprise for his choices are not off kilter but right on bullseye for the purpose of time-traveling. Let me tell you why.


Of Chaos, Connectivity, Thermodynamics and Changing the Past  
(Why I think Albus Dumbledore's Eccentricities Were Actually Right On the Bullseye)

"_There is no coincidence, Delia, only the illusion of coincidence." Alan Moore in V for Vendetta (1988) _

I was hesitant to publish this in fanfiction net as it deals with fiction only in a collateral way. But, since this is a rambling about the hobbies of my favorite character in the Harry Potter world, I didn't very well know where else to publish it. I'm not a really social person, so I shy away from social networks (though my therapist thinks writing here is a move in the right direction).

I think Albus Dumbledore is one of the most misunderstood characters ever written. I've heard him called evil, I have heard him called old fool. I've heard him called Machiavellian. I've heard him called detached even by the author who wrote him. He seems to command either pity or hate more than any other feeling. On the other hand I love him. I think he was none of those things; but that, as many people who do not conform to the norm, he was seldom understood. OK, I'm not saying that I understand the man any better. I'm saying that I see him in a different light because I have the outsider perspective too. And from the outside looking in Albus looks damn fine to me.

I don't see him as an old, wretched crackpot, but as a very intelligent man, sensitive and kind in his very own way. It is not easy to be the one who sees outside the box and is in charge, in spite of himself, of the task of shaking it hard to make things fall in their rightful place. I admit that, being in the spectrum myself, I may be projecting a little bit on the figure of my favorite outsider of the Harry Potter Saga, but bear with me...

In this particular ranting I want to address Albus Dumbledore's love of knitting patterns and ten-pin bowling and the relationship I see of those with the big elephant in the room in the Harry Potter Universe. And no, I'm not talking about the man's sexual orientation… I'm talking about the problem of coherence that our darling author created when she chose to introduce the time-turner… The elephant in the room being, of course, the possibility of changing the past.

I'm willing to bet my last penny that it was a problem that really interested Albus Dumbledore. Come on, people! Do we really need the Mirror of Erised or the Resurrection Stone to figure out that someone with Albus' personal history would have had a keen interest in the question of changing the past? And I happen to think he did more than think about it…

Exhibit A: The fact that Albus Dumbledore can offhandedly take an article that can very easily be weaponized to devastating consequences out from the Ministry and give it to one of his alums for the alleged reason of helping her manage her schedule is enough to get my suspicious nature buzzing. Curious and curiouser. Is it because he had some involvement in its creation? Me thinks that is a very plausible explanation.

And if Albus Dumbledore was preoccupied with the subject of time-travel then that sheds a very different light on his love of knitting patterns and ten-pin bowling… Here comes the other reason why I was hesitant to publish this: I have had some very… uh… bad rapport when I've engaged in that kind of ranting in the past. Even from someone who is often my most hardcore supporter. She is one of my best friends, a Hufflepuff veterinarian (aka magizoologist) and, sweet soul she is, puts up with what she sees as my own eccentricity… For example: even though she is in the opposite side of the ocean from me nowadays, she agrees to watch movies and have brunch-lunch or dinner- breakfast with my hubby and me through digital means. And when I say with us I mean it.

Yeah, people, Skype doesn't only allow you to see each other naked. It allows you to cook a meal, set up a nice table, pour wine and dine- eat breakfast in parallel with someone on the other side of the world. The idea is not even mine. I read it when I was ten in _The Naked Sun_ a 1957 Sci-Fi novel, written way before Internet was born. Internet had already been born when I was ten, but it was still crapping its diapers.

My friend smiles when I say that dining- eating breakfast with her makes me feel like a Solarian from Asimov's novels and that I miss her being around but, frankly, save for her and a handful of people whose physical presence I do enjoy, I wish I could interact with most other people through a holographic projection, because it would be sooo much less stressful than actual physical contact. I also wouldn't mind being pampered by robots as long as they followed Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics. I kinda like being pampered and I kinda like robots. She laughs goodheartedly at that last bit.

My friend also laughs, though less goodheartedly at my conviction that Albus Dumbledore´s hobbies are not casual. When I start rambling about knitting being a great way to untangle the intricacies of chaotic systems and how ten-pin bowling is a wonderfully practical way of studying triangular numbers she just bursts a gut laughing. It is not hyperbole: I've seen liquid actually gushing out from her nose… That's how hard she laughs at the thought.

She is not persuaded when I tell her: _"Come on! Just knit a Lorenz Manifold and tell me you don't understand how rapidly chaos develops in certain systems better by just watching it coil."_

My friend may laugh; but the fact is that the infamous butterfly effect is better understood as crochet instructions than it could ever be by a metaphor about an insect. Furthermore, seeing an example of a chaotic system in three dimensions helps you cozen to the idea that, even though unstable manifolds are a conceptual reality, some of those systems are stable manifolds.

OK the fact that some chaotic systems are stable has mind-blowing implications as that allows you to have some predictability within the system in spite of their chaotic nature. I mean you can crochet a chaotic pattern with a workable algorithm! That idea is so effing powerful that it is almost as good as having a wand in your fingers. Can you feel the magic tingle?

I invited my friend to see a wonderful YouTube video called: Crochet Chaos by Dr. Hinke Osinga and Professor Bernd Krauskopf with the most beautiful example of a Lorenz Manifold in black, white and purple yarn. It is so pretty you could hang it in your bedroom or put it in a Tim Burton movie. But my friend was unmoved. Or as unmoving as one can be while trying very hard not to burst a gut laughing. She usually manages to control herself after a few trials... That's how much she loves me. I don't expect anyone else to love or indulge me. But, in case you are interested, watch the video and, if you are really interested read Dr. Osinga and Professor Krauskopf paper, it is available for free in their dedicated page.

I don't have to tell you that my friend giggles uncontrollably, if I go on to say that Albus Dumbledore must have been aware that the problem of a fully connected network also known as the handshake problem for n people is solved by the n-1 triangular number; which is a figurate number that counts objects arranged in an equilateral triangle. It cannot be casual that the ten pins in ten-pin bowling are arranged in an equilateral triangle which is T4=10 the 4th triangular number. A strike being an example of perfect connectivity.

Ten pins set up in an equilateral triangle are the 4th Triangular number T4=10. Triangular numbers count objects arranged in equilateral triangles and are a very interesting concept. The prince of mathematicians: Gauss is said to have calculated T100 to solve the question of adding up the first 100 numbers. Legend has it his teacher left the task to get the children out of his hair but little Gauss solved it almost immediately by realizing that he could pair numbers up to ease the task.

Go ahead, give it a try, I'll wait right here for you… Here is a clue: leave out 50 and 100, that way you can arrange the rest of the numbers to add them easily…OK, if you take 1 and 99 they add up to 100. Is the same if you take 2 and 98, and so forth up to 49 and 51. You have 49 hundreds which mean you have 4,900 plus the100 and the 50 you had left out. Now you only need to add three rather easy numbers to get the answer which is T100=5,050. Kind of amazing. Isn't it? All triangular numbers can be expressed as _Δ= _n*(n+1)/2.

T4 =10 is the result of adding the first four positive integers. It is also the answer of how many handshakes are given so that everyone gets to shake everyone else hand in a room with 5 people. You can think that the first person shakes hands with 4 people, the second has only 3 people left to shake hands with and so forth. The total number of handshakes is n*(n-1)/2 with n=5 which equals 10. But 10 is the 4th triangular number so you only need to calculate Tn-1 to get the number of handshakes that are given in a room with n people… It is easy to see that is a problem of connectivity. And what is a strike but the pins all giving handshakes to each other in a way that gets them toppled?

OK, handshakes are kinda yucky… And 5,050 handshakes… The horror! But untangling how connectivity works and how forces, ideas and information disperse through a network in a coherent way is not a trivial question. In fact some see that as a basic prerequisite to achieve the holy grail of computer science: quantum computers and networks. I'm trying to keep this simple; so I'm not going to get any deeper than saying that quantum computers in which the basic unit, the qubit exists in two states as opposed to the bit which is either 0 or 1 allows you to manage energy more efficiently and have a bigger processing power. The problem of handling communication between such quantum computers in a way that lessens the risk of incoherence may become crucial in the next few years.

Oddly enough it is in the quantum level that the directionality of time is of less consequence. That is why it was in a quantum computer that Russian, Swiss and American scientist of the MIPT have recently managed to curve The Second Law Of Thermodynamics, which is closely related to the notion that time flows only in one direction from the past into the future. In that quantum computer they have reverted the flow of time. Another powerful, almost magical concept.

From a purely theoretical point of view the equations to represent the move from past into future and future into past are basically the same. In a quantum computer it is possible to revert things from a state of greater disorder into one of more order. Broken tea cups reform, volcanoes erupting go backwards and we are allowed to see how disarrayed billiard balls go back to orderly form a triangle. Isn't that very like magic? But isn't all magic in essence a way of bending The Second Law of Thermodynamics?

You could even argue that magic is a metaphorical representation of our need to combat chaos and dissolution… Something that occupies the mind of anyone with two scoops of brains and one dash of curiosity inside his or her skull. And Albus Dumbledore had more than a couple of scoops. If you are interested: The article of how quantum computers have managed to revert the flow of time is available in Scientific Reports.

My friend just rolls her eyes upwards when I mention names like Feynman (a Nobel price laureate physicist who actually lectured on the use of knitting for teaching math) or Gauss (dubbed by some as the prince of mathematicians, who among many other things, proved, once he was a man, that the solution to Fermat's polygonal number theorem is the sum of three such triangular numbers EYPHKA= Δ+Δ+Δ).

I lose her completely if I try to point out that chaos and connectivity are primordial to any serious discussion about time-traveling and its implications. She thinks a serious discussion about time-traveling is an oxymoron. I think it is not. And I think connectivity, predictability and chaos are crucial to the discussion. Leaving ethical considerations aside, and mind you I do not think those are trivial either; the practical consideration of not altering the timeline in ways that may mean you end up wiping yourself out of history is very important for the prospective time traveler.

I like my Sci-Fi with a generous portion of Sci. For me fiction doesn't mean that you can pull rabbits out of hats and get away with anything. Basically because if you don't adhere to some rules, workable, understandable, rules; then you risk ending up with a mess not even you will be able to untangle.

The idea of a timeline implies discussing the directionality of time. And here comes another misunderstood character: The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Often portrayed as villain, some even see it as a representation of terrible fearsome death… Something that, by the by, Albus Dumbledore has also being accused of in a fan theory that has been even supported by the author.

OK, people, how do you go from something that can explain how mixing hot water and cold water gives you temperate water to making powerful assumptions on the nature of time? Well, the short answer is that the movement of heat between a body of hot water /air/ whatevs into cold water /air/whatevs is in essence a movement of energy and energy lays in the very core of the question of why things tend to go from an orderly state into a state of greater disorder and not the other way around. It also has to do with the concept of inertia, which can be easily described by this: When you put cold water into hot water the water is not going to get hotter overall, it is going to get cooler. Because heat is about molecules vibrating and it is easier for molecules to stop moving than it is for them to keep on moving. That is the way our Universe works. That is what gives a direction to things. Such is the essence of a directionality of time. When you mention the dreaded law what you are actually saying is that things tend to go to… let's say to the dogs. Having children around the house forces me to try to curse a little bit less...

Hold your horses before you reach the wrong conclusion: The Second Law of Thermodynamics is not the enemy here. Want the water to stay hot?… Pour some more energy into the system. Light up your stove and then the cold water will get hot and you can have a nice cup of coffee or tea, dear. The problem, of course, being that you cannot get something out of nothing, you have to put some more energy in the system to keep things working. The problem of the kick start is not trivial either but I won't get into it in this rant. Let us assume you already found the world working. What life is really about is that all forms of life, from bacteria right up to us are toiling, busting our asses to put more energy in order to try not to go back to the original state of non existence. Inertia is a bitch!

But what happens in a closed system like say, for example, our whole Universe? Well, that depends on whether you think that you or some other being in the Universe can create things out of thin air or not. 'Cause if you think things can be created from thin air then you are fine and have absolutely nothing to worry about, while you or the being you believe in keep the energy coming... For the rest of us who have strong suspicions that is not the case, a closed system means that our ability to fight off chaos and dissolution is capped and that at some point the inertia is going to win the battle. From that perspective the future does not look so bright.

Here is where my lovely friend usually yells: "You grim, morbid, goth! Why does everything always have to go back to being sucked into the abyss with you? You really screwed up your head by reading Poe and Lovecraft at eight...Here, have a chocolate, put some sunshine inside you..."

Uh… First of all: Yummy, I do love chocolate… Second: Honey, as flattering as the thought that I have some influence on how the whole Universe works is… The truth is that I have none. OK, since I like to believe in free will, let us say that I have a very, very limited agency on the Universe. But I'm still in the same boat here. We are all rowing with _Charon_ downstream. And, despite the accusations against me, I'm not rowing enthusiastically in the direction of the abyss while singing shanties with the boatman… I really aren't.

I'm fighting on the side of _Eros_ / _Life _here. Zsa, you know me very well, so I'll admit that there have been times in my life in which I have winked at _Thanatos_ / _Death_ and that I think the guy is kinda cute in a tall, dark and dangerous stranger sorta way… But that is as far as I'd ever go. I would never buy the guy a drink or ride in his car! I'm a good girl and I'm not B-horror-movie-chick stupid.

Back to the point: If you ever intended to travel in time, you would need to consider all these things: Number one, the energy released to allow you to make the jump, which means a very efficient system of handling energy like in a quantum computer, so efficient that it can curve the Second Law Of Thermodynamics. Number two, you need a deep understanding of how things connect and are affected by others. Number three, you also must have a deep understanding of how chaos arises and how even in chaos, if the system is stable, there can be predictability. With that you might try to travel time responsibly.

So, given all that, I happen to think that Albus' love for knitting patterns and ten-pin bowling are right on the bullseye, not eccentric at all. Eccentric, of course, meaning out of center or kilter which Albus Dumbledore sure as hell was not. A gyroscope may seem crazy to those looking at it from the outside, but, believe you me, they don't call it gyroscopic stability for nothing. I'd love to address Chamber Music, for as Liebnitz said: _Music is the Arithmetic of the soul, which counts without being aware of it_... Especially musical variations… But that would take up too much space, perhaps some other time.

I love my friend but she is not into speculation. I managed to coerce her to read Jules Verne when we were in middle school, but aside from falling madly in love with Nemo, she didn't get much out of it. So she is not all sold on the idea that the wild dreams of today build the bold realities of the future. Let alone the idea that knitting and bowling can give you a better handle of consequences and predictability when messing around with the timeline. I guess that is just me and Albus Dumbledore.

But I readily forgive her for not taking my word on it. Ever since we found each other as angry Gen X teens, mourning the loss of our illusions of changing the world with black outfits and fierce wolf-like smiles; she has my back and puts up with me and my eccentricities. She has some of her own, like wearing mismatched socks. But she is a punk, she likes to do things against the grain.

Yeah, Tonks is not the only punk Hufflepuff. Though my friend's hair is not hot pink nowadays, it is pure silver like _Ororo's_ from _X-Men_. Damn girl, leave it to you to look even cooler not dying your hair to cover the gray! If I dared do that I'd look like my granny, you look like a weather witch queen.

The things we are willing to put up for love… I put up with her sarcasm. And she puts up with my unshakable faith. Like when I reply by paraphrasing a quote from V for Vendetta to what I admit are a very reasonable objections: _"J.K. is a wonderful writer but, wake up and smell the coffee: the woman cannot add. Merc, gorgeous, do you think she had high flung maths in mind when she made up Dumbledore? For the love of… She didn't even made maths a mandatory subject at Hogwarts!" _

If you wonder about what V's quote I paraphrase, well it is the one that opens this rant: _"There are no coincidences, Zsa, only the illusion of coincidence." _Granted, J.K. may not have made maths mandatory, but wizards and witches with a need to understand things beyond waving their wands still took it as an optional subject while Dumbledore was the headmaster… I'm just saying.

I don't like to make it seem like I'm beating on my Hufflepuff friend. I love her very much. You know that Zsa, don't you? After introducing me to my husband, as far as I'm concern you have a free pass to get away with murder. You know I'm always shovel-ready to help you bury the evidence, girl. I've got your back too. Let's agree to disagree. Keep thinking the character of Albus Dumbledore was a darling eccentric...

I'm siding with Gaiman and Eco here, I think a book is a construct in which reader and author are accomplices. That is why the act of reading is an act of creation and no two readers ever read the same book. So, to me, Albus Dumbledore was a genius with a sense of humor. OK, his sense of humor was a bit dark, because when light shines so bright within a person, it casts very long shadows too. Especially if your mental landscape is not flat. But that is precisely why I love him so much.

I love Albus Dumbledore for all the light and all the shadows. I love him for loving sherbet lemons cause sour-sweet is the best, second only to _xocolatl,_ which is the food of gods. I love him for the foolish optimism to keep trying _Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. _I love him for making the hard choices others didn't dare to. I love him for believing in love as the greatest force of the Universe when he was a force on his own. I love him for welcoming every wounded wanderer and making them feel at home, when he had lost his home being a child. I love him for giving himself time for humming and saying foolish words when he was carrying the weight of the world in his shoulders. I love him for being gentle and indulgent of others when he could have rightfully been arrogant and despotic. I love him for loving someone to the very end. I love him because that love didn't stop him from doing what was right. I love him for trusting people who weren't even old enough to apparate legally with taking charge and saving the world. And I don't think I ever loved him more than when he jumped from a tower to save an obnoxious child; holding onto faith that, in the end, things would be alright.

Doing all that when you are able to see farther and deeper than everyone else around you is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. And I did cry: Albus, I miss you as if I had known you. I light a candle for you for _Dia de Muertos_ because I feel you are one of mine: _uno de_ _mis muertos_. And I'll keep doing it even if my hubby and my bestie smile indulgently at me for doing it.

_AN: __Hello there, I'm Mercurial Weather, a Ravenclaw (bet you had already guessed that), my Patronus is a Mastiff, my wand is Beech wood with a Unicorn hair core 10 3/4" and Unbending flexibility. That should tell you a lot about me. I'm obviously a fan of Ms. Rowling's creation and also of all things Victorian. I'm writing a fic about Albus and Gellert that revolves around some of the ideas of this rant. Thicker Than Blood is its working title. If you care to read it, the more the merrier..._


End file.
